For four months this year I had a residency at the Supplyframe DesignLab. I worked on “ILOVELAMP“, a project experimenting with creating lamps with configurable light emitting surfaces using addressable LED strips.

I really like the generation previous to the current Macbook Pros. You know the ones. They had all the useful ports like USB-A, HDMI, an SD Card slot, and MagSafe! And it had a long-lived battery in a thin case. That is my Macbook Pro. And it’s wonderful.

But now 3.5 years on, the once legendary battery was at about half its design capacity. I got 1600 charge cycles out of it though, which is astounding. And it still worked, unlike a previous Macbook’s battery that ended up getting a bad cell that caused it to unceremoniously shutdown at 20%. So I replaced it and I think it is working out great.

Currently I’m the main maintainer of node-hid, the Node.js package that lets you talk to USB HID devices like blink(1). I recently cribbed automated build config from node-serialport so now node-hid is automaticallybuilt for Mac, Linux, & Windows and Node 4.x,6.x,7.x. It’s pretty cool to have these robots doing my bidding. But did you know you can do automated builds of Arduino sketches too? I didn’t until last night and it’s AMAZING.

At CrashSpace we have a publicly-viewable “sign” at https://crashspacela.com/sign/ to let members know when the space is open. This sign page is updated by a big button in the front room. Press it, the sign page updates, and you’ve promised to be in the space for an hour.

Some history

The first version of the BigButton I did back in 2010 consisted of an Arduino in a taplight tethered to a netbook running a Perl script. Last year it was upgraded by a member to a Spark.io SparkButton (early version of the Particle Photon Internet Button kit but not using the better chip of the Photon) with a custom 3d-printed case. That upgrade resulted in a much simpler and smaller Button than my original. It was great. But occasionally it would drop its connection and need a reboot. Then a month or so ago it just stopped working entirely. I ended up recreating the functionality with a Photon but found the environment limiting, particularly the near-requirement of an online compiler.

The New BigButton

For the new BigButton I went with the Wemos D1 Mini ESP8266 WiFi board. This is essentially a tiny version of the standard NodeMCU board that contains a USB-to-serial interface and the necessary support circuitry to control and reprogram the ESP8266 module. It’s easy-to-use, stable, and great. Instead of programming it directly, I figured I’d try the ESP8266 Arduino core and write an Arduino sketch.

Custom PCB Carrier Board

The first BigButton used flexible LED strip hot glued into a repurposed tap light. That worked but I wanted an excuse to do another Othermill-based PCB, so I created a carrier board that had 12 WS2812 LEDs and a socket for the D1 Mini board. There are breakouts for testing the WS2812s and the button inputs. It also has footprints for buttons and mounting holes for either standoffs or guide rails.

Otherwise the schematic is pretty straightforward.

Sacrificial Neopixels: Converting ESP8266 output for WS2812 LEDs

One interesting thing about the schematic how the ESP8266 (a 3v3 device) manages to control 5V WS2812/Neopixel LEDs. Some WS2812s can be driven by 3v3 logic HIGH, but it’s iffy. The standard solution is a level-shifter buffer to convert 3v3 HIGH to 5V HIGH.

The technique used on the BigButton board, however, is to create a “sacrificial” LED powered not by 5V directly but via a stepped-down voltage from a standard signal diode (with its 0.7V voltage drop). This creates an approximately 4.3V power source that is high enough to drive the LED but brings its concept of logic HIGH (>70% of Vcc) down to what a 3v3 device will output. Basically, we’re building a fakey intermediary power supply for a single LED. The rest of the WS2812 LEDs are driven by 5V.

Here’s a diagram perhaps making the idea more clear:

Othermill design considerations

I wanted the PCB to be millable on an Othermill, so that meant modifying my standard PCB design techniques. There are a few reasons for this. For instance, since this board has no soldermask, I want to maximize spacing between copper traces to avoid solder bridges. Also, I want to minimize the use of endmills smaller than 1/32″ because they are fragile and take a long time to mill.

Thus, the techniques I use are:

Increase trace width 16 mil (0.016″)

Add ground plane, set its Polygon->Isolate value to 32 mil (0.032″)

Single-sided only design (or minimize back-side traces)

Space components out to enable easy soldering

The result is below. The Wemos D1 Mini board is mounted on the backside of the board so it doesn’t affect light output.

For the enclosure I reused the original 2010 BigButton taplight enclosure because its diffuser is really pretty good. Plus my Fusion360 skills weren’t up to making a custom 3D printed enclosure.
The PCB is mounted on standoffs that are then screwed into the modified taplight. The taplight’s switch is reused as the button input.

The final result is flashed with WiFi credentials, wired for power, and installed on the wall.

Pages

blink(1) USB RGB LED!

blink(1)is a super status light. It fits into any USB port on almost every type of computer: Mac, Linux, Windows, Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone, WRT router, etc. No drivers needed and APIs in about every language you could want. And it's all open source.